Keep track of your bets with good bankroll strategy

So, now you’ve got your betting strategies down, you know all about odds value, and you’re already well on your way to playing at a top bookmaker like Mr Green. Is that all you need? Not quite. Finding value is clearly key to creating a healthy game, but equally important is managing your money. Without a solid plan for how to handle the money you have to play for, you could end up losing despite your betting strategy being sound.

Key Principles

The main principle of bankroll strategy is defensive. Everyone who bets money will experience long runs of losses due to the high variance. However, with a solid plan on how to handle your money, you can weather the storm and stay in the game. There is also a psychological benefit to a good bankroll strategy. Chasing your losses or playing big due to overconfidence after a win are constant dangers. With an implemented bankroll strategy, the decision of how much to play for is taken out of your hands and removes the possibility of gambling based on emotion.

A watertight bankroll

Are you ready to lose? It doesn’t sound positive to most people, but even the best money gamblers lose from time to time. They make a profit in the long run because they find value, but in the short run the results can vary greatly. To make sure this variance doesn’t knock you off course, you need a bankroll that’s independent of your day-to-day finances.

The size of your betting bankroll will determine how much you can bet on each individual bet. To find out how much this is, calculate the longest possible streak you can lose in. There are several online calculators that can tell you how many losing bets you can expect in a row. By factoring this into your bankroll and bet size, you can create a bankroll that will be large enough to handle even the longest losing streaks.

Level Staking

Level staking is the simplest way to calculate how much you should bet. Using this strategy, you use a set percentage of your bankroll for each bet. As your bankroll grows, the size of your bet will increase and if you experience a losing streak, your bet will decrease. This ensures that you are always betting in proportion to the amount of money you have in your bankroll.

The advantage of level staking is that it is easy to understand. Once you have calculated the longest loser time as described above, you can calculate how much your bets should be. For example, if the longest loss you can expect is twenty, you can expect your bet to be 1/25 or 1/30 of your bankroll, depending on how much safety net you want.

Kelly Criterion

The disadvantage of the level staking system is that it does not maximize your potential profit, which is why many prefer to use the Kelly Criterion. This system runs on variable stakes and has roots back to the 1950s. The essence of Kelly Criterion is that the size of your stake depends on the amount of value you have found in the bet. So if you feel that the odds of the outcome you are betting on at Mr Green underestimate the real probability by 20%, then the bet should be 20% of your bankroll.

The problem with this method is that if your calculations are wrong you can lose your entire bankroll quite quickly. Because of this, many people choose to play with what is known as ‘Half Kelly’ or ‘Quarter Kelly’, where you halve or divide by four the stake set by the Kelly Criterion, sacrificing some of the potential profit to reduce the risk

Fibonacci Method

This exotic-sounding bankroll strategy method is built from the Fibonacci number line created by the 12th century mathematician from which the name comes. A Fibonacci Sequence starts with the numbers 1 and 2 and then adds the previous two numbers to the next When you start playing with the Fibonacci Method, the size of your bet will be determined by the numbers of the sequence, going up one step for a loss and down two steps for a win.

As with the Kelly Criterion, this approach can lead to significant losses as the size of your bet increases with each losing bet. However, if you are careful and aware of the potential damage to your bankroll at a losing streak, the Fibonacci Method is a dynamic bankroll strategy approach that can bring you big gains.